Saturday, November 26, 2016

Dragonite Despair

"Mixed-Up Floral Overlord"--Friday, 11/25/16

I picked this blue graphic T, cardigan, skirt combo as inspiration for a cooler-weather outfit featuring my Important Date Alice top.  Her outfit is perfect nerdy librarian chic.  For my Friday-off-work outfit, I went in a slightly less coherent direction.

From librarianforlifestyle.com

I could not resist pairing the top, which has a floral print on the lettering, with a floral cardigan.  Then I added a cute peplum hiking skirt and semi-tough ankle boots for an overly-matchy-yet-also-chaotic effect.


Light blue "Important Date" graphic T (Disney Alice/Kohls), $4.32/wear
Black/pink floral cardigan (thrifted, Macy's), $3.50/wear
Black peplum hiking skirt (Royal Robbins/REI), $1.67/wear
Black tights
Black ankle boots by Sam Edelman, $2.59/wear
Bright pink scarf (Target), $1.50/wear

Outfit total: $13.58/wear

Does it look any less nonsensical from this angle?  I didn't want to cover up the lettering peeking out from the cardigan, so I tied my scarf in a new-to-me way.  The base tie is called The Celebrity, but I modified it to have the tails tucked in discreetly.  To me, this outfit is a bit like a Friday-after-Thanksgiving meal of leftovers--there is a sense that some of the things go together well but that it's been supplemented by some really random stuff.


What are you feeling thankful for today?  You know me, I'm all kinds of grateful for the existence of bunnies, especially mini rexes--the little rabbits that bring an extra big dose of softness to a world that needs it.


In other news...I didn't manage to get dressed in this outfit until about 5 p.m.  We had a long Pokemon walk in the morning (for which I wore more practical clothing) that I was exhausted after, requiring a lot of lounging in my comfy chair until I had the energy to take a nap.  It was that kind of afternoon.

On Thursday night, we went out again despite the rain, driving to a couple of Pokemon gyms where we were able to displace the current team.  Because they were in parks, we were also able to walk around a bit and pick up items at some Pokestops. 

The two highlights of that session:  (1) While walking at the park that is almost directly across the river from our apartment, an SUV pulled up and 3 people got out, all excited.  Then after a few minutes they piled into the car and drove away.  I was like, What was that about?  Robert said, I think they were after that Magnemite we just caught.  Duh, Pokemon Go, what else could they possibly be doing? 

(2) While driving down a dark park road, Robert suddenly stopped the car, pointed, and said, Bunny!  He kept trying to explain where it was and finally I saw a shadow that I conceded could be a rabbit, but how could he possibly identify it?  He saw it run to that location.  Oh, that helps a lot.  He pulled the car until the headlights were focused to the side of the shadowy figure with enough light that I could see that it was, indeed, a bunny.  Then we quickly drove away so that the poor rabbit didn't have to sit there in a frozen position any longer.

Speaking of Frozen, last week while we were shopping at Target, I mentioned to Robert how Tam had thought that my light mint scarf looked appropriate for the season because it was a color from the movie Frozen.  And I was like, I have no idea because I don't know what the characters in that movie look like.  No joke, less than an hour later, we were looking at the Christmas ornaments, in the Disney section (where I picked up Alice and the Cheshire Cat), and I said, I don't even know what some of these are--what's that one?  Robert said, The younger sister from Frozen.  I said, OK, what about that one?  Robert said, The older sister from Frozen.  So it has been empirically demonstrated that indeed, I don't know those characters.  But I have no idea how Robert does.

The toughest part of yesterday's Pokemon walk (aside from how much time we spent standing, which kind of kills me) was that we saw a Dragonite, perhaps the most desirable fighting Pokemon, in the wild to be caught...and not knowing any better, we tried to catch it.  Which was HORRIBLE.  See, apparently Dragonite has a 4% base capture rate, which means that once you actually catch it in a standard Poke ball, it escapes 96% of the time.  So of course you turn to your stronger balls and razz berries...and it still breaks free over the over.  But that's probably not the worst part.  What's truly enraging and despairing is that it is almost impossible to hit the Dragonite with a ball to begin with because they are both far away and fly (which makes the small target area on the Dragonite's head very, very far away) so it's extraordinarily difficult to throw the Poke ball far enough to hit it.  I wasn't able to hit it at all.  Robert could very occasionally, but with a lot of practice got up to hitting the Dragonite about 1 time out of 4.  After using up 60+ Poke balls (which included almost all of our high level balls) and god knows how many razz berries...Robert finally did catch it!

So serious props to Robert for catching a rare, prized Pokemon.  (Ours is CP 1232, which is on the low side, but can be powered up into a fighter with a lot less investment than trying to evolve one.)  But I do take credit for putting us in the area to encounter it.  You see, I was looking at all the gyms visible from near our apartment, and I saw one for our team that had a guarding Pokemon with a trainer name that is the nickname of a Snow City woman who is known for doing bird-related educational programs and for loving rabbits.  I was like, Do you think that's THE BC?  Let's go over to the science museum and build up that gym!  (Science museum?  You know that's gotta be her.)  And outside the science museum is where we encountered the Dragonite.

So once Robert wakes up this morning and we have breakfast and all that, guess what we'll be doing?

I'm hoping we do not encounter another Dragonite.  I don't think I could survive it.

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